“Rove is a proven liar who cannot be trusted to tell the truth even when he is under oath, unless and until he is directly threatened with the prospect of prison time.”— Joe Conason, Salon.com, March, 2007.

Karl Rove doesn’t look good these days; although he still exudes a smugly smiling aura of the polite ‘good’ little boy who knows he’ll never get caught for stealing that bicycle, he’s added weight and an unhealthy pastiness to his moon face, and his porcine blue eyes dart nervously from side to side as if seeking cover when the questions hit too close to home.

Those who have followed Rove’s fetid bottom-feeder career in politics, from his youthful College Republican days as a Nixon dirty trickster to his shoehorning the affably inept George W. Bush into the Texas governor’s mansion and the White House on 3″ X 5″ index cards of tested talking points and a willingness to hit lower below the belt and lie more continuously than most previous political handlers, know that no fly’s wing is safe near this man and, seeing him strut his stuff on ABC’s This Week Sunday morning, that even in supposed retirement from party politics, he is still in the business of regurgitating king-sized crapola for the GOP with the worst of them.

I reached for something to throw at the TV as he discussed Barack Obama’s supposed lack of any kind of record in the US Senate and his alleged failure to ‘reach across the aisle’ to Republicans to get things done. Either Rove is as ignorant as the body that hosted his political brain, or he’s lying through his teeth, and my bet’s on the latter. Here’s what someone more honest and objective had to say concerning Obama’s record:

“Obama has been accused of being all flash, and of not having done much in the Senate. His record in the three and a half years he has been there suggests someone serious about the job: he worked on a nuclear nonproliferation bill that passed and backed a number of policy changes to help veterans, including more medical care for those with post-traumatic stress disorder, assistance for homeless veterans, and the extension of tax credits for military families. He pushed through the Senate a major bill on ethics reform; and introduced legislation in January 2007 to stop, or if that failed, limit funds for the surge. He also worked with the conservative Republican Tom Coburn in a successful effort to get Congress to impose transparency on government expenditures so that anyone can look them up. The criticism that he hasn’t done more also overlooks the fact that during his first two years in the Senate, he was ninety-ninth in seniority and in the minority party.” — Elizabeth Drew, “Molehill Politics,” The New York Review of Books, March 30, 2008.

No wonder Karl thinks Obama has done nothing all of the things he’s accomplished are what Rove despises ethics, government transparency, nuclear nonproliferation, increased help for veterans and their families.

Then Rove did a little riff praising Hillary Clinton’s experience and one has to wonder with a double-dealing sleazebag like Karl if he wants Hillary to stay in the race or actually wants Democrats to hate Hillary since he’s praising her. (Sadly, she recently accepted Rove’s New Math to pump up her chances at the Dem nomination. This is the same math that said Republicans would retain the majority in Congress in 2006. Oops.)

But the stench of the sewer really overflowed the pipe when George Stephanopoulos asked Karl about the Don Siegelman matter. Here’s a transcript, with your Tattlesnake’s remarks interspersed: